Innovation strategy is about creating unique value for consumers by delivering a great product that satisfies their needs and capturing value back from consumers.
At the core of a successful innovation strategy is a great product concept. Product is an all-encompassing term that includes physical goods, intangible services, and even ideas. There are three pillars to a successful product strategy: a clear understanding of (a) the target customers (WHO), (b) the specific elements of the product offering (WHAT) that satisfies consumer needs and dovetails with company capabilities, and (c) the tactical plans to reach end consumers (HOW). The value proposition has to be embedded in a coherent business model in order to create and capture value. But well-laid innovation plans can go awry without a consideration of the business ecosystem that includes competitors, collaborators, including suppliers, distributors, and retailers, or the contextual environment in which the company operates. In an interdependent world, fostering an integrated ecosystem is critically important for companies interested in maximizing the odds of innovation success.
Drawing from many years of research, this course will offer a set of frameworks, tools, and concepts in order to develop innovative strategies in a holistic way so as to achieve leadership positions.

教学方

Raj Echambadi

E. Geoffrey Love

Associate Professor

脚本

Hello. My name is Geoff Love. As a professor at the Giese School of Business at the University of Illinois, I want to first say that I and we at the University of Illinois are proud to be offering this course on the fascinating and important topic of strategic innovation. I want to extend to you a hearty welcome to it. Now, strategic innovation has been discussed in different ways but then its core involves a firm finding novel ways to compete. We might and probably do think first of new products or services, and they are often at the core of strategic innovation. But it's also important to realize that strategic innovation can involve finding new and unique ways to satisfy customer needs or serve new customers. It can involve creating new business models that differentiate the firm and even open the industries. All of these concepts are particularly important to understand in today's fast-moving business environment, and they will be central topics in this course. I also said strategic innovation is fascinating, and there's many reasons why. Just for instance, customers react to new things very differently than they do to familiar ones. Innovation is about the future but the future is uncertain and ambiguous. So innovations often fail, but failure to innovate is not an option. In the end, companies have to navigate a complex and changing matrix of technologies, and product possibilities, markets and segments, and competitors. So, strategic innovation is not easy but there is good research and there are powerful frameworks that can help you diagnose what's going on, and then make sound creative decisions about strategic innovation. That is what we work to bring to you here. Now at those points in mind, I want to mention that this course is the first in a linked pair of courses 'sister courses' if you will about strategic innovation. This course is about the strategy side. That it is mostly about making decisions that lead to a winning innovation strategy. But there's another side innovation which is about implementing strategic innovation at firms, that is managing innovation initiatives. That is the preview of the sister course. I hope you are able to take both, they are highly complementary. Now, I also mentioned these two courses for another reason. In this course, you will see two Giese school professors; myself, and Professor Rajesh Embody. Rajesh was one of our leading professors at the Giese school, but he recently left. Nevertheless, you will see that the videos for this course continue to feature Him. We are drawing on these videos because we believe they're quite well done and because the strategic and marketing side of innovation is very much in his wheelhouse. Now, if you continue over to the sister course in managing innovation, you'll see that I take over the videos there. In this course though, I'll play a role as a guide. I'll introduce the core topics in each module giving you a bit of an orientation. Some modules cover quite a range of topics, so it'll be helpful to have an idea what is coming, and then at the end of each module I'll give you a high level summary, ties together the various key learnings and taking takeaways, and at times I'll provide a perspective that is complementary to Rajesh. So, next and before we get to the first module you'll see Rajesh course introduction. He actually starts with what I think isn't inspiring orientation. He talks about the rich heritage of innovation here at the University of Illinois and highlights the critical importance of innovation to society in general. Then he proceeds to the idea of Strategic Innovation and the core course topics. So, I'll see you next when you're ready to start the first module.